


Fragments of Freedom

by astroenergy



Series: Make me or break me [2]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Getting Back Together, M/M, healing relationship, leaving the past behind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 21:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18352202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroenergy/pseuds/astroenergy
Summary: Shizuo and Izaya are trying to rebuild their relationship.





	Fragments of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This could also be an update for Mutual Consent, because as I've said before, I am going to update these two parallelly, in a chronological order. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it!

“What the hell happened to you?”

With how loud frustration was ringing in his ears, it took several moments for Shizuo to realize that Izaya was wincing and to identify the sound reaching his ears as a pained hiss. He let go as soon as he did, but the bruises had already started forming around Izaya’s upper arms, where his hands had squeezed a bit too hard. Instead of complaining, Izaya simply rubbed at those spots and pushed past Shizuo to step inside the other’s apartment and shrug his coat off his shoulders. He then proceeded to take his shoes off, only to hiss some more as soon as his hand took hold of his boot. Before he had the time to process it, Shizuo was kneeling down and grabbing said boot himself, waiting until Izaya had straightened up and leaned his forearm against the wall for support before pulling it off and then repeating the process for the other one. From his new position kneeling on the floor, he could see that Izaya’s right pant leg was torn at the knee. “What happened?” Izaya was inspecting the palms of his hands with mild irritation and completely ignored the question as well as the man who had asked it. _Should have known it, things had been good for way too long._ Sighing at himself, Shizuo stood up and studied the bruise forming on Izaya’s face once again; it had looked a lot worse under the strong lights of the hallway, when Izaya had been looking up at him, but it was still a bruise and a large one. He followed the other’s gaze down to his palms which were a mess of dried blood and dirt, the angry red of a new scrape. It was probably silly, but his heart was beating hard and fast and there was a knot in his chest. His eyes wouldn’t stop scanning Izaya’s form for other wounds, hidden ones and perhaps more dangerous than the ones he could already see. “Your pants are torn.”

“I know” Izaya huffed in annoyance, glancing down at the torn cloth. “I really liked this pair.”

All of his trousers looked the same to Shizuo, but he refrained from pointing that out. Instead, he took the opportunity of Izaya finally talking to him to repeat the only question that mattered: “what happened?”

“Nothing happened, Shizu-chan!” Izaya all but snapped, immediately clenching his jaw as if his temper had betrayed him. He forced a smirk on his face before continuing, but it didn’t succeed in hiding his irritation. “I just had a run-in with some old friends.”

“Old friends, huh?  And what? They dragged you down the street for the sake of old times?”

Izaya fixed him with a glare cold as ice. When he opened his mouth to speak, Shizuo was certain that what would come out of those lips would be nothing less than a hurtful insult, but instead Izaya just coldly informed him that he had to wash his hands before pushing past him and heading for the bathroom. And this was so out of character, that he stood there dumbfounded for a few moments before following him.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Izaya was hissing over the sink, holding his palms under the running water. Shizuo had only a vague memory of the pain a new scrape would cause, since he hadn’t really felt much pain ever since he was an adolescent, but Izaya’s whole body was so tense as he was hunched over the bathroom sink that it didn’t take a genius to guess how he was feeling. And yet Shizuo was still taken by surprise by him practically barking over his shoulder.

“I’m fine, just leave me alone!”

Under different circumstances, anger would have probably bubbled over at Izaya’s tone. But as it were, Shizuo was too preoccupied with worrying about him and instead tried to cautiously rephrase his question in the hope of maybe getting an answer this time.

“Are you bleeding?”

“Are you blind?!” Izaya shot him a glare through the mirror in front of him, still holding his clearly bleeding palms under the water.

“No, I mean… do you have any, uh… any other… uh…?” Caught under that menacing glare, Shizuo found that Izaya’s shitty behavior could invoke paralyzing feelings other than anger in him. At that moment, he felt small and flustered. He wasn’t sure what he was saying or whether the words were indeed coming out of his mouth, he could just as well be mumbling nonsense for the way Izaya’s gaze only grew more aggressive and his lips pressed harder until his mouth was just a tense line, ready to spring at him and slice him up. “What happened to you?” he managed to mutter with no small amount of trepidation, only to have Izaya lash out at him again.

“Will you stop asking stupid questions, protozoan? Which part of ‘nothing happened’ did you not understand?”

It might have been that dreadful nickname coming out of Izaya’s lips after what seemed like an incredibly long time. Or it might have been Izaya’s confrontational tone and malicious glare. In fact, it could have been a million different things that pushed Shizuo out of his flustered daze and got him shouting back at Izaya: he had been calm around his former archenemy for too long, his nemesis-cum-lover was currently sporting a pretty bad bruise on his face, two scraped palms and at least one scraped knee, his life had fallen apart and he was being forced to pick up the pieces in ways he considered shady to say the least… Shizuo would later resolve to thinking he had had plenty of valid reasons to lose his cool and besides, it had worked.

“Fuck! You’re clearly hurt, you’re bleeding and on top of that you’re pissed! Something clearly happened so stop fucking lying to me!” He took a step in towards Izaya who was always watching him through the mirror but whose gaze had lost its malice at Shizuo’s raised tone and was turning more and more weary by the moment. “What the fuck happened, Izaya?” After a moment during which he seemed to be holding his breath, Izaya averted his gaze and mumbled something in the sink below him. “What?”

“I fell! I tripped and fell, happy now?” Shizuo did his best to suppress the laughter bubbling up his throat but with little success. Instead of managing to keep a straight face as he had hoped, he ended up snorting a laugh that was only cut short by his hands clamping down his mouth after it was already too late. He watched Izaya’s eyes widen comically in incredulity in the mirror opposite him, before the other whipped around to fix him with a glare and challenge him with a tone that was breathing fire. “Are you laughing at me?”

Hands dropping to his sides and head shaking vigorously from side to side, Shizuo couldn’t refuse fast enough. “No! I’m not. I’m not laughing _at_ you, I just -” Izaya’s eyes had narrowed daringly and Shizuo scrambled to gather his thoughts and pin down the right thing to say. “I can’t imagine you tripping, that’s all!”

Grace was what those words translated into for Shizuo, grace and agility, maybe even infallibility to a certain level. If Izaya could look into his mind, his distrust would melt away instantly, but of course he couldn’t and Shizuo could only stare at him pleadingly and wait for his agitation to ebb. It didn’t. But at least Izaya didn’t storm out of the bathroom to run away, back to Shinjuku where he could nurse his wounded ego unseen. Instead, he averted his gaze, as if he couldn’t stand even looking at the other, and turned the tap off with the back of his hand, muttering “I’ve tripped and fell more times than I could count while running away from you”.

“I’ve never seen you trip.” Izaya glared at him through the mirror once again, apparently interpreting this as a challenge, but Shizuo went on to explain with the softest smile he could master under that gaze: “You always looked as agile as a cat to me.” For a moment, Izaya’s expression seemed to falter, but eventually it settled into something hard and cold.

“You can ask your new best friend to tell you about all the times he had to treat me for a sprained ankle or for cracked bones after one of our fights.” Shizuo opened his mouth – to remind him that his friendship with Shinra was anything but _new_ , to apologize for past mistakes and to protest, all at the same time – but Izaya beat him to it. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

Said kit was stored under the sink and Shizuo instructed Izaya to sit down on the toilet seat while he retrieved it. Most of the time, Shizuo couldn’t be bothered with disinfectants and bandages, but he still kept a first aid kit, stocked with all the essentials for cleaning and dressing a wound, just like his mum and later Shinra had both taught him. So he took the disinfectant out, applied some on a cotton pad and asked Izaya to show him his palms. At first, it looked like it might take some persuading, but eventually Izaya complied, albeit with a great deal of hesitation. Which, as soon as the cotton pad came into contact with his scraped skin, was wiped away by agony, as Izaya hissed loudly, trying vainly to pull his hand from Shizuo’s hold. Instead of letting him go, Shizuo held his hand steady, blowing lightly against the wound with an apologetic look on his face.

“Sorry, I don’t really feel the sting, so I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“Who the hell uses alcohol to disinfect wounds?!” Shizuo simply nodded and kept blowing at the wound until the sting subsided to nothing but a dull tingling, drowning Izaya’s irritation along with it, until nothing but a heavy weariness was left. “There are non-alcoholic disinfectants in the market, protozoan.” The insult only drew a smirk from Shizuo the way it was delivered this time, with words dragging over fatigue and resignation. He let go of the wrist he was holding to catch at Izaya’s other hand and gently turn his palm up before sliding his hold up to the wrist and securing it in a seemingly loose, but nevertheless unbreakable hold. This time, he leaned over and started blowing gently on the wound before he had even brought the cotton pad down on it. This technique completely alleviated the sting of the alcohol against the broken skin and Izaya barely flinched at the contact. With pain no longer forcing irritation in him, he found himself watching Shizuo’s face as he leaned close, the brown of his lashes and the ridge of his nose, the stretch of his cheekbones and the way his lips pursed as he blew warm breath against Izaya’s palm. It was an oddly intimate experience and Izaya felt a shiver go through him. If Shizuo noticed, he didn’t comment. But if the subtle flush on his face and the way he swallowed after letting go of Izaya’s wrist was any indication, he was also feeling it.

“I should do your knee as well.”

Izaya simply nodded, feeling that words would fail him if he attempted to speak, and went to undo his jeans. Nothing was easy with two scraped palms though and he ended up hissing once again. Before he could force himself to ignore the sting and just go through with it, there was another set of hands at his zipper and Shizuo was staring into his eyes, waiting for permission to take over. Izaya moved his hands out of the way and kept his gaze on the other’s face as his jeans were undone. Getting undressed by someone else had always felt strange. Izaya had never allowed Shizuo to undress him after that very first night, because letting him remove Izaya’s clothes felt very much like allowing him to strip away his defenses one by one, handing him over control and letting him tear down every single barrier that had been carefully erected to keep Izaya safe. It had taken a lifetime to build those walls, to construct some semblance of normalcy in an otherwise fragile existence, born of such weak and questionable foundations that sometimes he’d feel like a derelict tower, with paper-thin walls and such feeble structure that it could disintegrate at the first breeze. Shizuo looked up to meet his gaze after he had undone the zipper and Izaya lifted his hips up to help him pull the jeans down his legs, the cloth dragging against the scraped skin on his knee and making him clench his teeth. Shizuo pulled it off his feet and held his gaze for a moment, as if searching for something there, before reaching into the first aid kit to get a new cotton pad. He followed the same procedure, applying the disinfectant, leaning close, blowing gently against the wound as he brought the cotton down to swipe carefully against the broken skin, pulling the cotton off as he breathed in and bringing it down again once he had resumed blowing warmth against Izaya’s injured skin. It lasted only a few moments, but somehow time seemed to draw to a halt for Izaya as he stared at the other’s features. He couldn’t help wondering how many times Shizuo’s mother had repeated the same process for her son in the past, lovingly dressing wounds, many of which had been inflicted by none other than Izaya himself. But most importantly, he couldn’t help reaching back into his own memories, searching for something similar in his own childhood. He was sure there must have been plenty of times when his mother had nursed his wounds, but there was nothing there when he tried to reach for those memories. Whether he had completely erased them or simply buried them under tons of resentment and bad memories, he couldn’t tell. When Shizuo looked up and smiled at him, replacing the cotton pad in his hands with bandages to be applied to the fresh wounds, Izaya realized with horror that the simple sensation of the other’s warm breath and firm hold against his skin had almost brought him to tears. So he blinked the heaviness off his eyes and forced a playful smirk on his lips.

“Look at you, like a mother hen nursing her wounded chick.”

Shizuo glanced up at him in the process of applying a bandage on Izaya’s knee and smiled dreamily. “You can laugh all you like, but I’ve always dreamed of having my own children some day. I think I’d make a good father.”

Izaya didn’t laugh. Instead, he cut the other’s daydreaming short with his flat tone. “You’d make a terrible parent.” Shizuo’s hands stilled. After a moment, he went on to finish applying the bandage, but his mood had clearly shifted. He was no longer smiling, instead his lips were set on a tense line and his eyes avoided Izaya’s.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“When was the last time you punched someone for asking too many questions? For talking too much when you wanted some peace and quiet?” A smart person would have changed the topic or allowed the conversation to simply end. The funny thing was that Izaya had always considered himself smart. “How many nights do you think you could go without sleep, before throwing your baby out of the window?” Shizuo actually gawked at him in pure horror at that. Which was funny considering how accurate Izaya’s observations were. “You don’t have enough patience to be a good parent.”

“I would never hurt a child. My own kin, no less!”

“I thought the first time you ended up in hospital was because you’d attempted to throw your fridge at your little brother.” That was below the belt and Izaya almost bit his tongue at the betrayed expression Shizuo fixed him with.

“I have never once hurt Kasuka.” Shizuo’s voice came low with strain.

“Not for lack of trying. Besides, your brother has tailored his entire personality to ensure he will never again trigger one of your rages. Face it, Shizu-chan, you’d be a horrible parent.”

“You wouldn’t be any better yourself” came the expected retort with no little amount of vehemence. But Izaya simply nodded.

“No, I wouldn’t. Which is why I will never have children.”

At that, Shizuo’s defensiveness seemed to mellow. His shoulders sagged and the aggressiveness in his gaze gave way to confusion.

“You don’t want to have a family.” It was a statement more than a question, but it was spoken with clear confusion and disbelief.

“Why would I want a family?” Shizuo’s brows drew up as a response and Izaya rolled his eyes. “I’m not naïve or desperate enough to believe I could find somewhere to belong and fill all the holes by spawning offspring. Families are born out of social conventions, they are founded on compromises and do you know what compromises are, Shizu-chan? Dead dreams and betrayed ideals and people faking who they are so they can fit in a miserable existence in boring suburban 2-bedroom homes” Izaya continued without giving him a chance to reply and then clenched his jaw shut and willed his hands to stop shaking. Shizuo was watching closely with an expression that was half sadness and half disgust and Izaya had no doubt who the disgust was pointed at. But he didn’t want to have that conversation, he had already said more than he should have, so he reached for another bandage in a futile attempt to put an end to it.

“I’ve never met your parents” was what Shizuo chose to say eventually, in a tone that revealed none of the feelings simmering underneath the surface and Izaya couldn’t help but chuckle at how unsubtle a statement that was.

“I’ve never met yours” he countered while trying and failing to apply the bandage without hissing. Shizuo took over without a word, simply taking the bandage from Izaya’s hand and resuming the process of dressing all of the other’s wounds silently. It seemed like he might be willing to drop the subject, but the relief only lasted for a few moments, until Shizuo was done with one of Izaya’s hands and before he moved on to the other one.

“I know from Shinra that they were never around-”

Izaya interrupted him with an exasperated sigh. “Look, there is no tragedy, ok? Nothing to pick at and try to justify the way I turned out. There’s no horrific child abuse, no criminal neglect, no tragic death or other life-altering event.” Shizuo mumbled an ‘ok’ that sounded more like a question and Izaya found himself explaining even though he had no intention of doing so. “They never should have had children, that’s all. Not everyone is meant to have children.” He had never before put those thoughts into words. It had never been necessary, this was not a topic of conversation he’d ever explored with either Shinra or anyone else. And he had never felt the need to form those words for the benefit of himself or his sisters either, partly because to do so would be to admit that there was indeed some kind of problem to be dealt with. And Izaya had decided early on that the best way to deal with a personal problem was to pretend that it didn’t exist. Little did it matter that he would relentlessly mock other people for that way of thinking and twist it to his own advantage.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Izaya realized that he’d been staring vacantly at his lap and looked up to find Shizuo watching him. “Of course it’s not my fault” he said the words that constituted the only acceptable answer, but he knew that children are bound to feel responsible for every little grievance in their family life and that this feeling lingers into adulthood no matter how many reassurances one hears.

“Are you close to your parents now?”

He shook his head and pushed his hand forward, to get Shizuo to continue bandaging that wound too. “We speak on the phone sometimes.” He hadn’t spoken to his father for over a year. Shirou Orihara had chosen sides early on; Kyouko’s happiness was his absolute priority and since his wife’s happiness resided far from their children, he had little interest in them. Love was a brutal thing, Izaya had learned that when he was still a child. As for his mother, he could go months without hearing from her – he would never pick up the phone to call her himself. But that was not something Shizuo needed to hear. “They live abroad. They don’t come back often” was what he offered instead.

“Well that sucks” Shizuo stated in his state of total ignorance. He finished with the bandage and held Izaya’s palm in both hands, staring at his work and rubbing faint circles in Izaya’s wrist with his thumbs. “I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.”

“I can hold my own against common thugs.”

“What if they’d been carrying a gun?” Shizuo looked up and Izaya raised an eyebrow in response, the corner of his mouth quirking into a hard smirk.

“You’re the only one who has ever managed to badly hurt me Shizu-chan, you’re the one I should be scared of!”

Shizuo flinched visibly and let Izaya’s hand go, pulling his hands to his sides and holding the other’s gaze for a moment, before turning to put the first aid kit away and allowing Izaya the space to pull his trousers back on. He had his back on Izaya when he spoke up again, bending over as he was tucking it away under the sink where he had earlier retrieved it from.

“My parents never had much money. They both worked, but they didn’t make much.” He turned around and leaned back against the sink, crossing his legs at the ankle and bracing his palms at the sink on his sides. “After my strength started manifesting itself, I would end up in hospital all the time. The bills were piling up. I was always worrying that I was a burden, that they’d start wishing they’d never had me, maybe even give me away. It was stupid, I know.” He paused for a few seconds, looking over at Izaya as if he was gauzing his reaction, but the other was staring at him blankly, unsure of where this was going. He was not used to this kind of bonding over confessions about their childhoods and family life and he wasn’t sure he enjoyed it either, despite the wealth of information it was providing him; he couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling that he was expected to offer information about himself in return, information he did not wish to disclose. “Money was not a problem” Shizuo continued eventually. “It was hard paying all the medical bills and they’d both work long hours to cover the expenses, but money was not a problem the way I thought it’d be. My parents never saw me as a burden. But in the stretch of years from the first signs of the inhuman strength I possessed until the day I reached adulthood and left the family home, there were a few occasions when both my mom and dad looked at me with fear in their eyes.”

There was no guilt or regret in Shizuo’s tone, barely any sadness. Izaya had never stopped to think about how painful Shizuo’s childhood must have been in that respect. But now that he was hearing the words, he found that it was all to be expected. Of course his parents would have been scared of him at times. Parents are people, they have the same weaknesses as everyone else. Izaya had rationalized his parents’ behavior in his mind, even if that hadn’t helped him come to terms with his disappointing childhood. He knew that his parents were simply humans in comparison to the monsters he might have been tempted to present them as in his mind’s eye. His father was a man who had passionately fallen for a woman who didn’t love him back quite as much and who had consequently done everything in his power to try and win her favor, since her love was unreachable. He would have probably been a good father if he’d had a wife who loved him as much as he desired to be loved. As for his mother, she was just a woman of her time, only a lot more clever and capable than was convenient. How could he hate her for that? She’d gotten married and had children because that was expected of her, but she’d channeled all of her devotion in her work, the only aspect of her life which allowed her to be herself, independent, strong-minded and capable, instead of the meek housewife and mother she had never wished to become. If she’d been born in a different society, at a different time, she would have never chosen to become a mother, Izaya was certain. He could not hate her for that. He could resent her for being judgmental and controlling, but surely she wasn’t the only mother to possess such qualities. Izaya had realized through the years that his suffering as a child had been nothing but a misunderstanding, but that realization hadn’t made him feel any better about his childhood.

“Kasuka was the only person who never seemed to fear me. And then you.” Izaya didn’t know how to respond to that, especially since Shizuo seemed to appoint great significance to the fact, so he remained uncharacteristically silent. “I’m sure your parents loved you.”

“You don’t know anything about my family.”

“I know the twins adore you.”

His irritation was momentarily replaced by amusement and Izaya chuckled. “They always side with you during our fights, they hope to see me dead!”

“I didn’t say they’re normal!” Shizuo smiled fondly, bringing the two younger Orihara siblings to mind. “I think you’d make a good parent. You brought them up, after all.”

“And they turned out perfect!” Izaya exclaimed, his tone dripping with sarcasm. But Shizuo’s smile only grew wider.

“They’re good kids – a bit weird, but good. You can pretend to be a badass, but I know you have a soft spot for them which only goes to prove you’d be a great dad. You may be a piece of shit and a blood-sucking parasite, but I think you wouldn’t make the same mistakes as your parents; you’d give your kids the kind of no-boundaries devotion that’s all any child needs.”

This was the most faith anyone had ever put in him and it might have been sweet if it wasn’t completely misplaced. It also spoke of a pattern that was as flattering as it was depressing: Shizuo seemed to constantly paint a picture of Izaya in his mind that deviated slightly from the truth, from everything Shizuo knew him to truly be like. Maybe he wasn’t forgetting Izaya’s true nature, but he was constantly adding a few strokes of warmer colors to the picture, altering somewhat Izaya’s personality to render it more appealing. It was clearly an attempt to justify being with someone he had always deemed despicable and Izaya might have been offended if he were anyone else, but for the most part he was happy to put up with it if it meant he could maintain this relationship that had started forming between them. Not to say it didn’t hurt him in ways he couldn’t start to explain. And at that particular moment, the hurt was rendered unbearable by the sting of his palms and the memory of warm breath against them in a display of unparalleled affection, at least for him. So he pulled his shoulders back and fixed Shizuo opposite him with a gaze that was level enough to hide the wound underneath, forcing his voice to come out steady.

“ _No-boundaries devotion?_ Are you really so naïve as to believe that?” Shizuo’s good-hearted smile blurred into hurt confusion and Izaya had to mentally push himself to continue. “Nothing in life is unconditional.”

This was hard-earned knowledge for Izaya. The fact that he’d learned the truth of it at a very young age didn’t make it any easier. He wasn’t at all surprised to find that Shizuo thought otherwise, but the proof of  it, written all over the other’s expression, left a deep ache somewhere within him, something dark and hungry churning inside him. Envy, perhaps, at the life that Shizuo had lived, a life parallel to his own yet so different from it, a life that had allowed him to grow up believing that there were people out there who could love him and trust him and never betray him. It was all lies, of course. Izaya knew from experience and from careful observation through the years that loyalty was but a trap. Human beings were complicated creatures, with complex emotions and thought processes that they often failed to understand even themselves. Given the right opportunity, any human being would choose to betray and hurt the people they claimed to love; it was part of what made them human. This flawed nature of them was what drew Izaya’s interest, the contradictions and the naivety, the way even the smartest of people would lie to themselves about any number of things concerning their true motives, the rightness of their ways, the fairness of their character. Izaya loved it all and yet some part of him could not bear to be subjected to it, not ever again. His parents would probably claim to love him and his sisters if anyone ever asked them, and he was certain that they really believed they did. If that was what the love of humans really felt like, he would rather live without it.

Shizuo didn’t reply immediately. He seemed shocked at first, but his expression quickly morphed into a frown of irritation. “You’re wrong”.

“Sure I am” Izaya drawled with a sardonic grin which only caused Shizuo’s frown to deepen. “Because love is unconditional, ne?”

Shizuo’s brow twitched as if on cue, but instead of going into a rage, like he would have done some time ago, he just huffed, shaking his head and averting his gaze to try and find his balance again. His fingers flexed against the porcelain of the sink behind him, his teeth worked on his lower lip and just as Izaya was bracing himself for the violent outburst, he huffed again and looked up. “Why are you doing this?” His tone was harsh, but the fact that he had managed to control his irritation was enough to catch Izaya by surprise and rob him of any reply he might have thought of otherwise. “Why are you trying to work me up?” Seeing that Izaya was only staring at him dumbfounded, Shizuo felt his anger spike. He cursed under his breath, shifting his weight forward, pulling his hands from the sink to avoid breaking it without thinking and, as a result, towering over Izaya before him. The words came out barking, a substitute of the punches he would have used on another occasion, causing Izaya to flinch back instinctively. “Yes, love is unconditional, is that what you want me to say? So you can laugh in my face? There is no other way to love someone, but how the fuck would you know? All you know is how to sneer and belittle others, but that doesn’t make you smart, flea”.

Izaya was clenching his jaw in an attempt to ground himself, so when he spoke up, the words came out cold and hard, far more challenging than he’d meant them. “How the fuck would I know, indeed” and before Shizuo could respond, he tipped his head back, to make up for the fact that Shizuo was towering over him “Do you think this” with a slight nod to the space between them “is unconditional”? There was no response, only confusion and irritation blending in Shizuo’s gaze. “We are bad people you and I. No one normal would ever get involved with either of us. Perhaps that’s the only reason why we are together”.

A deep crease found its way between Shizuo’s brows, but the expression in his eyes was more deep-seated ache than anger. “I don’t believe that”.

“Of course you don’t. It’s just like you to believe that this thing between us is pure and meaningful. You’ve always been naïve like that”.

“I don’t want to be a bad person”. He seemed more worried at the possibility that he was just that, than pissed off at Izaya’s comment and Izaya couldn’t help but laugh, nasty and shrill.

“Sorry to break the news to you, Shizu-chan, but nobody wants to be who they are. We just are”.

There was silence for a moment, as Shizuo studied him, weighing a thought in his mind. “You keep coming back to me even though you’ve seen the worst of me. How is that not unconditional?”

“Ah, you really are naïve, aren’t you”? His grin so wide, Izaya could hear it in his voice as well as see it mirrored in Shizuo’s eyes.

“Just answer the fucking question”.

“That _is_ the condition, protozoan. Do you think I would have wasted my time with you if you were any less of a beast?”

Shizuo tipped his weight back without realizing it, now even more confused than before. “That doesn’t make sense” but Izaya only grinned up at him enigmatically. Shizuo felt his mouth go dry at the uncertainty, but he swallowed his pride and pushed on. “I know we’ve been through bad times. But things changed between us, right?” There was no reply once again. “I don’t see you as a shady bastard anymore”.

Izaya’s response was to laugh and Shizuo felt his patience stretch precariously thin. “No, you don’t. You see me as the loving older brother who brought up his younger sisters with unconditional love and self-sacrifice” his tone dripping irony. And then he put the sweetest smile on his face “Is this what you call unconditional, Shizu-chan”?

Shizuo’s eyes went wide with surprise at the covert accusation and he spluttered before finding his voice, amusing Izaya to no end. “I’m not trying to change you!” but Izaya was laughing before he had even finished his sentence and Shizuo found himself grabbing his shoulders and shaking him to make that nasty sound stop. “Stop laughing at me, I don’t want to change you”!

“Are you sure about that?” his eyes were shining with mirth, but something malevolent was playing underneath it. He wasn’t laughing any more, but his smirk unnerved Shizuo. “I contemplated many different ways to get back at you while I was healing. I thought of all the things that you hold dear and how I could take them away from you to make you hurt”. Shizuo released his hold on Izaya’s shoulders, fearing what would come next and how he would react to it, but Izaya grabbed his hands before he could pull them off of him, pressing hard against them to keep them still against his body with no regard for the pain that bloomed in his scraped palms, staring up at him with a saccharine smile. “There were so many options, Shizu-chan! I don’t think you even realize how easy it is for someone to hurt you!” Shizuo had stared down Izaya’s eyes many times in the past and he knew what danger looked like in those red irises. He ignored Izaya’s hold against his hands and pulled back. But Izaya was unrelenting, digging his nails in Shizuo’s skin, and all he managed was to pull Izaya along with him, causing him to skid to the edge of the toilet seat. “But there’s one perfect target. Sweet little Kas-”

Shizuo didn’t wait to hear the end of that sentence, he pushed him back without caring whether he’d hurt him – which he probably did, judging from the groan he heard as he dashed out of the bathroom and all the way out to the living room, to pace his temper off. Any alternative would have been worse, he knew. Izaya was trying to make a point, some part of him was aware of that fact, but his anger was too bright, covering everything else. He silently prayed that Izaya would allow him enough time to calm down before emerging from the bathroom, but when had life been easy on him before?

“I would never hurt my precious humans, of course, but if I were to make one exception, it would be a pleasure to hurt him” Izaya drawled as he stepped out of the hallway to join Shizuo in the living room. He was met with the darkest look he’d ever seen adorning Shizuo’s face.

“Stop that” his tone just as dark.

“Come on, Shizu-chan. You have to admit, it would be so much fun to watch that usually expressionless face convulse in terror or pain”. Shizuo grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled his fist back, rage clear on his face, but he stood frozen there and that just wouldn’t do. “Go ahead, beast” Izaya goaded him on. Shizuo snarled, his fist drew further back and his whole arm shook with how hard he was trying to restrain himself, but in the end he just pushed him back, causing him to stumble before he could regain his balance.

“Sometimes I want to punch you so hard, you’ll swallow your teeth and all your fucking bullshit with it”.

Izaya was grinning back at him. The image was so unsettling, so unfitting to the situation that Shizuo felt himself falter. “So much for unconditional” was what he finally said, with such self-satisfaction that Shizuo was left chilled to the bone at the realization that he had been played so easily. “Thanks for playing nurse with me Shizu-chan, but I think I’ll take my leave now” and he was turning to the door, stepping over with an air of finality.

“What?”

Izaya was bending over to pick up his shoes and there was no time for Shizuo to think and process and make decisions, so he acted instead. He rushed forward, covering the distance between them with only a couple of long strides and taking Izaya’s shoes to discard to the floor behind him. But Izaya only smirked at him, unperturbed by the fact that he was being manhandled like that. “I feel like sleeping in my own bed tonight, Shizu-chan”.

“No, wait”. Izaya was waiting, gazing up at him patiently, but Shizuo had no idea what to say, or what he even wanted. He tried to grasp for something, anything his mind had to offer. “Don’t go” was what he said, which wasn’t very helpful seeing as he was holding him still already. “Look” he didn’t have the words ready in his mind, but he figured he could just wing it “I’m not saying I like every single thing about you, you know I don’t. Sure, you piss me off sometimes, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you”. Izaya’s eyes were shining, but for once he was silent. “I’ll keep saying it until you believe me: I know you. I know who you are and it’s you I want, not some fantasy”.

“And what could you possibly want from me, Shizu-chan”? His smile was playful, but genuine, it warmed Shizuo’s chest and he felt himself replying in kind. He loosened his grip on Izaya’s arms, turning it into a caress instead, feeling his toned arms beneath the cloth of his shirt.

“You can laugh at me all you want, but what _I_ want is a family. _Not_ ” he pressed on so that Izaya had no time to mock him “children necessarily. Although I’d like those as well, at some point. There are ways” Izaya interrupted him with a chuckle and Shizuo slid his hands up his arms and his neck to bury them in his scalp and give a little squeeze, mumbling an embarrassed _shut up_ against his lips. He basked in the comfortable silence that fell between them and nuzzled Izaya's nose with his. The words had finally formed in his mind, but there was no way of predicting Izaya's reaction to what was at the tip of his tongue. He pulled back a bit, to stare into Izaya's eyes, and when he confirmed that Izaya was still smiling at him, he went on carefully. “I want to be your family. Two can make a family too, right”? He kept looking into Izaya’s eyes for an answer, but he could only discern a hint of apprehension behind the wall that had suddenly risen between them. It was not surprising, not after everything Izaya had just told him. Even if Shizuo wasn't the smartest man out there, it wasn't hard to understand that Izaya had never truly felt like he had a family before, and perhaps he had never felt like he was anyone's family either, despite the fact that he had played a big part in his sisters' upbringing. To Shizuo, that statement meant everything, there was no greater commitment that being someone's family. But to Izaya, it might have sounded hollow, or it might have ignited any other feeling that Shizuo could not even start to imagine. He exhaled through his nose and massaged Izaya's scalp with his fingers, resolving to not push further. “Just stay here tonight”.

For a moment it seemed like Izaya would say no. His expression was still perfectly blank and by now it had become clear to Shizuo that this was usually a bad sign. But in the end he nodded, so Shizuo smiled at him and gave him a peck on the tip of his nose, but before he could pull away Izaya was grabbing his wrists to stop him. “I’ll stay, but you’ll make me a promise”. It took some effort for Shizuo to not roll his eyes at that, he did not look forward to making more promises, but he waited to hear what it was that Izaya wanted this time. “I want you to kiss me” was perhaps the last thing he had expected to hear. “And when the panic rises, I want you to keep kissing me”. That left him entirely confused, so Izaya went on to explain. “I don’t want you to give me space, I don’t want you to stop, I want you to persist no matter what. Will you do that for me”?

There were very few things Shizuo wouldn’t do if Izaya asked him with that look on his face. He spent most of that evening in the couch holding him, alternating between kissing his lips softly and rubbing circles on his back when the panic washed over him. It was like chasing the tide away. In the end, Izaya fell asleep in his arms, completely spent and unresponsive for the rest of the night. Shizuo carried him to bed and watched him for long minutes, until sleep claimed him as well. Izaya’s serene face was the image of a second chance, if only Shizuo could do things right this time around. The taste of Izaya’s lips was a kind of absolution and Shizuo fell asleep to the thought that all he had to do was persist. Perhaps this time things would indeed be that easy.


End file.
